by James Gawley
“What about the Woade? Did you do that too–did you tell them that the garrison was weak, that they could take these men unawares?”
“Don’t run away with yourself, boy. I don’t go to bed with barbarians.”
“I used to feel guilty that they sent you to this place. Now I can’t believe they didn’t kill you already. You aren’t fit to wear the red.” Primus half-hoped that Varro would lash out at him. He couldn’t fight four armed men, but if Varro’s anger made him reckless, perhaps he could take revenge for Fulcer and the Luckless.
But Varro controlled himself. “Your father is locked inside his stronghouse with my gold. Unless you can convince him to come out, I’m going to pile dry wood against that building until it’s nothing but a heap of kindling. Then I’m going to cook your father alive.”
Primus stared. Varro’s voice was flat and quiet. There was no hesitation in his face. The anger that had flooded his limbs drained away. “What... what do you want?”
“I want to let you go. I want to let your father go. But if I’m going to, you’ll have to come with me first.”
“Why should I trust you? Why believe anything you say?”
Varro stepped closer, unafraid of Primus' makeshift weapon. "Don't mistake yourself, boy. I'm not offering you a choice." Varro was only a few feet away. His sword had not left its scabbard. The old man's black, bloodshot eyes bored into him.
Varro reached for the shovel, and Primus let him take it.
His shoulders sagged. "The others... the ones trapped in the mine. Help them. At least let the volunteers keep trying to dig them out."
"No one gets the chance to run back to the citadel. Never mind, boy. The tunnels go all the way through the mountain. Might be they'll find their own way out."
Despair dragged Primus down further. "What tunnels? You mean the mine?"
"The old city under the mountain. The Woade place. Where do you think this road leads?"
Primus glanced back to where the stone highway disappeared into the gloom between the trees. "I heard there was something underground...” Lepus had told him once of a ghostly city grown from crystal, and terrible altars beneath the mountain. He thought they were just campfire stories. He remembered the stone face of Jupiter with its empty black eyes. The sound of chanting whispered in the back of his mind. He shivered. “Can they really find their way out?”
“They might. They’ve been robbing the place long enough.” Varro tossed the shovel aside and grasped Primus by the arm. “Let’s go and see your father.”
***
Primus was shivering long before they reached the camp. His exertions had soaked his tunic through and the night was freezing. A slave had wrapped himself in Primus’ cloak. Another wore his armor. “You all thought you could get ahead of Justice,” Varro was saying. “You put me away and thought the Lady wouldn’t know your name. Heh. I don’t know what needs to happen before you realize the gods aren’t on your side.”
Varro had begun to rant as soon as they were on the move. He spoke quietly, for the most part, clutching Primus by the arm. Occasionally he gave him a vindictive shake. He had not bothered to bind Primus’ hands or feet. There was nowhere for him to run: on his own, the forest itself would kill him in hours.
The slaves trailed along behind them. Of the volunteers who had attempted excavate the fallen tunnel, there was no sign. “You always try to push me down. Every time I get ahead, there’s one of you to put me back in my place. Never again!” Varro gave him another shake. He seemed to be lumping Primus in with Marius and his father, as though he had plotted with them to send Varro to the mines. For his part, Primus let the words slide past him. He thought of the first time he had confronted Varro, on the day of Lepus’ accident. Your father is a coward and I’ll bet his son is too, Varro had taunted him. Go and get your wood axe, little Seneca. Many times since that day, Primus had told himself that he would not back down if he ever got another chance. Now he knew better.
“I was a knight once,” Varro muttered. “Your father took that away. Of course. And here you ride into camp on a fine black mare. The great General Seneca couldn’t stand to see his son in red.”
Even knowing it was useless, Primus could not let that pass. “My father didn’t pick me for extrordinarii. Legate Lucan did.”
“And you think he picked you for your experience? Lucan wants your name to polish up this little rebellion, just like Marius did with your father. As if anything a man does is legal, so long as he’s got a Seneca with him.”
As it always did, the mention of Primus’ name made him uncomfortable. “How could anyone ‘take away’ a knighthood?” he asked. “Were you ever really a knight?”
“Watch your mouth, boy. Don’t forget, you’re just as good to me with a few broken fingers.” For a moment Varro seemed to hesitate on the point of saying more. Then he grinned. “Back before the war, your father and his wife had some troubles. In public, like. Everyone knew he couldn’t keep her interested and no one was surprised when she strayed. So he got himself revenge against her family. I was a client of the Qyriani. They put up the property so I could meet the standards and join the knights. When your shitheel father set the courts after them, they lost everything–and I lost my patron. No horse, no land, and no one to turn to because I was marked for life as an enemy of your father’s. All because Marcus Seneca Magnus wasn’t man enough to please his wife.”
Primus reeled. The Qyriani. Was that the name of the woman on his portrait stone? Was that why Seneca had left her behind–because she had humiliated him? You look more and more like your mother. After six years, that was all his father had to say to him. I’ll wager he can’t look at you without thinking of her, Fulcer had told him. No wonder he had stayed away. Primus shoved at Varro, and as the old man lurched back he yanked himself free of his grasp. But Varro only laughed.
“I’d stick close if I was you. This is no place to walk around with the eagle on your chest.”
They had reached the narrow valley where the highway emerged from the roots of the mountain. Beside the road the corpses of the Woade still lay, stacked neatly as cordwood. To Primus’ eyes they seemed to twitch and move in the wavering firelight. Beyond the bodies were the gates of hell.
One tower had collapsed, and it lay across the gate. Slain legionnaires were sprawled on the road, more pitiful than the barbarians stacked beside it. Most had been stripped of clothes as well as armor. They looked tiny and cold on the frosted ground. One man lay across the palisade, speared by the sharpened stakes as he tumbled from the falling tower. Everything was bathed in angry red, as the flames beyond the walls licked at the night sky. Smoke like a puddle of ink blotted out the stars.
This was Varro’s idea of justice. Primus looked at him, but the old man was staring avidly ahead, his thin lips parted and flames dancing in his eyes. When he started forward, Primus followed him. There was nowhere else to go.
They clambered over the fallen tower to get inside. Primus stepped around the bodies of the Luckless without looking down. He moved mechanically as he pulled himself up onto the lashed timber beams. In front of him, Varro moved like a tomcat despite his years, walking swift and sure across the beam until he reached the splintered chaos where the tower had crashed through the gate. Here they picked their way carefully, but even so Primus came away with long scratches on his arms and a shard of wood in his palm as he dropped from the fallen tower into the courtyard of the camp.
Chill as the night was, the heat within the walls was oppressive. Nearly all the barracks were burning. More bodies lay inside the gate, both legion and slave. The base of the tower still stood, the bite marks of axes visible on its stumps. Far across the camp Primus could see that the opposite gate was under siege. There were fewer slaves than Primus expected, but more than enough to doom the remaining soldiers. A few Luckless were still alive atop the southern tower. Their vexilarius still held the cohort’s colors, a golden eagle atop a staff and below it a hanged man picked out on a
bronze shield. The others had cast down the ladder from the platform and now they fended off the slaves who shimmied up the tower’s legs. Others were already at work with their axes, chewing away at the supports. It would be over soon.
Varro led them straight down the central road to the middle of the camp. Primus’ eyes stung from the heat and the smoke and he shielded nose and mouth with one hand. Of the scouts and their horses there was no sign.
The stronghouse proved to be a squat grey building without windows. Its roof was grey shale and its low door was built of fire-hardened oak banded with iron. A narrow slot at eye level was shut from the inside. Varro had not been lying: one of the unburned barracks had been pulled apart, its wood piled waist-high around the stone walls of the stronghouse. The bricks and mortar might not burn, but the stout oak rafters would. Even if not, General Seneca could not stay inside forever. There was no way out, except through the gathered slaves.
No one acknowledged Varro as he approached, nor took notice when he kicked the heap of fuel away from the wooden door. He raised a fist and pounded, shouting to be heard through the portal. “Get out here, old man. This is Gaius Porsidius Varro. I’ve got your son. If you want him, open up!”
Only silence met this speech. A few of the slaves stopped bringing wood for the fire and came to watch. Varro dragged Primus forward by the back of his neck. “Speak.” When Primus hesitated, Varro’s knife pressed against the hollow at the base of his throat. “Speak, boy. Or scream.”
“Father! It’s Primus. Varro says you can end this.” Primus watched Varro. The old man’s attention was fixed on the door. There was an unwholesome excitement in his gaze. As the minutes stretched out, excitement faded and his face grew stony. Primus tried again. “There are still some soldiers left alive. They won’t last long.” He waited. Nothing. Primus drew a shuddering breath. “Father. Please help me.”
Varro turned to look at him, and Primus shrank back from the look in his eyes. The knife followed him, its point still pressed against his throat. The door-slit opened with a schlock. A dark voice spoke. “Get back from the door.” Varro glanced away from Primus and tried to peer through the slit. “Get back. Now.”
They moved. Varro let go of the back of Primus’ neck and wrapped an arm around him instead, shielding himself with the younger man’s body. The click of the latch and the scrape of a crossbar were audible even above the sounds of fire and distant violence. The door swung inward on smooth hinges. Marcus Seneca appeared in the doorway.
The general was immaculate in bronze-chased armor and red cloak. He stooped low to clear the lintel in his crested helm, and stood facing them a few feet before the door. Furio of the extrordinarii followed him out. Furio’s hand rode on the hilt of his weapon. His white cloak was scorched, his iron cap dented. His cheek was black and swollen. A bandage on his forearm dripped red. He ran his eyes over the gathered slaves, and when his gaze fell upon the men in armor who had trailed Varro from the mine, his sword leapt into his hand.
“Stop.” The general spoke without turning. Furio stayed where he was, looking murder at the men who flanked Varro. “Speak your mind, countryman.” Seneca did not glance at Primus.
“That’s nice manners, for a thief.”
“Make your point, Varro.”
Primus smelled Varro’s breath as the old man clutched him close. The knife hovered an inch from his jugular. “You don’t get to order me. I’ve got your son, and if you want him back you’ll listen for as long as I want to talk.”
The general only stared. Behind him, Furio shifted uncomfortably. He glanced at Primus and frowned.
“Your nice manners don’t make you better, old man, and they don’t make you right. I’m a citizen and you sent me down that mineshaft like a slave. You know what the punishment is for enslaving a citizen, and you did it anyway–”
“What’s the punishment for mutiny, Varro?”
“–you did it anyway. It’s no wonder the gods are against you. You stole that gold from the gods, and you stole the silver from these men who dug it for you. You stole my life from me, the life I should’ve had. You’re weak and you hate it that I can tell.”
“What do you want, Varro?”
“I want what I earned. I want the gold we dug out of the ground for you.”
“You dug no gold. This is a silver mine.”
“DON’T LIE TO ME.” Varro pointed the dagger at Seneca. Primus grabbed his other arm and tried to pull himself free, but the old man’s grip was iron. “I know what you found in those tunnels. I want the gold.”
“You say you want what you’ve earned. Fine. The silver ore sits in the smelting house. Process it and take what you feel you deserve. There were two hundred silver flans cooling when the mine collapsed; distribute those as you see fit. There’s cash in my quarters as well, in the wall beside the door. In all, that’s about ten pounds of silver. You could live handsomely on that for two years or more.” Primus could not turn to look, but he sensed the gathered slaves shifting their feet.
“Idiots,” Varro cursed them. “He’s distracting you. Do you want a few pounds of silver, or a hundred talents of gold?” But Primus could hear them moving off, slowly at first and then running. Furio did not watch them go or even sheath his sword, and Primus guessed that Varro’s friends still remained.
“Bugger this,” Varro spat. “Order your lot inside to open the door, or I’ll open your boy’s throat.”
“I can’t do that.”
“You want to watch him die, General? You think I’m bluffing?”
“No. I don’t.” Seneca shifted his gaze from Varro to Primus. His face was stone. “He is not going to let you live.”
“I’ll let you both live, you just get out of my way.” There was feral joy in Varro’s voice. The general continued as though he had not spoken.
“His only intention in drawing me out was to force me to watch.” Primus twitched in a spasm of fear. He could not squirm free. Varro’s breath was heavy in his ear. “You and I are going to die here, son. But we will die with honor. And I promise you this, on the faces of my ancestors: Varro is coming with us.”
Slowly, the general drew his sword. It was a piece of terrible beauty, ivory and gold and mirror-bright steel. Seneca lifted it high overhead, and for an instant he was Mars come down to earth. The firelight bathed his blade in red. His eyes were two black pits in a golden helm. “Are you ready to do your duty, Legionnaire Seneca?”
Tears filled Primus’ eyes. He blinked them away. He would not miss this final glimpse of his father. The nearby barracks collapsed in flames. A wave of heat crashed against his face. From far across the camp came the crack of timber as the final tower collapsed, rattling the earth beneath their feet. A maddened scream reached them: the last battle cry of the legion.
Seneca joined his voice to theirs. Primus took a shuddering breath. He would not shame himself in death. On the faces of my ancestors.
The general charged.
I have pursued them through the hills for forty days, but the Woade refuse to fight. Twenty villages we have found abandoned, and razed them all. A hundred times we have glimpsed the enemy, and challenged him. Always he slips away. I will take myself no deeper into this forest. I sense a trap closing around me. The trees are endless.
–Marius the Elder
Journals
WOADE
As the general charged, Varro’s men slithered forth to meet him. Primus braced himself to feel Varro’s knife against his throat, but the old man just held him there. Seneca’s sword flashed and one man leapt back... but the next instant he was pressing forward again and the general was forced to whirl between his two opponents, lashing out to keep them both at bay.
Two more men edged up to Furio, obviously wary of the scout. For his part, Furio circled slowly, refusing to let himself be surrounded. Primus could see that these were not untrained laborers in stolen armor. These were legionnaires, and they fought as a unit. Even worse, not all the gathered slaves had g
one off in search of the general’s hidden silver. Half a dozen remained, and they took up the splintered boards they had previously laid against the stronghouse and struck at Furio and Seneca as they struggled to defend themselves. The nearby slave quarters still smoldered after its collapse, its flames half as high but seemingly twice as hot.
Primus fought to free himself from Varro but the knife pressed against his throat and forced him to be still. “Your father was right,” Varro hissed in his ear. “I don’t want to make a deal. I only wanted to see his face. Do you think he fights so hard to save you? Or does he just want to die a glorious death?” At that moment a slave’s makeshift club glanced across the general’s gleaming helmet. Primus watched his father stumble and heard the hungry shout of the slaves. One of the legionnaires stepped in and stabbed his blade into the weak place in the general’s armor, just beneath the arm. Seneca cried out in pain and grabbed the soldier by the wrist, trapping him. He stepped in close to his opponent and brought his sword up beneath the lip of the man’s armor, driving the point up into the belly and twisting as he yanked it back out again. Only the armor kept his guts from spilling onto the frozen slush. The legionnaire made a strangled noise and sank to the ground, dropping his weapon.
Another club struck Seneca, this time behind the knees. He fell. The blows rained down on him as he struggled to rise. The slaves did not crowd in close, still wary of his sword. Instead they beat him from the full distance of their planks and boards. “No!” Primus wept. “Let me go. You coward!” But Varro only laughed at his pleas, and with a fist clenched in his hair refused to let him turn away.
Furio tried to reach the general. He pushed past the two legionnaires who still prodded at his defense. They both gave way easily as he charged, but before he could cut down the first of the slaves they leapt at him from behind, and he was forced to turn and face their sudden onslaught.
